The Composting Demonstration Site will be open  on Wednesday 8th September for  visitors to the West Leicester Hoticultural Show at Stokes Wood allotments 2B Stokes Drive, Leicester  The show will have classes for Flowers, Vegetables, Home Craft, Fruit, Handicrafts and Childrens Classes. The Hall will be open from 1pm  with the presentation of prizes at 3pm. Schedule of Classes and further details form Veronica Bolsover on 0116 2621991

The Composting Demonstration site showing a wide range of compost bins for composting garden, household and catering waste as well as  techniques for converting weeds into plant food and wormeries will be open from 12.00. 

Sunday 18th August Rowlatts Hill Allotment Open Day at the Blakenhall Road site. We were in luck and  it stayed fine for the Open day which was well attended. One of the good things about Allotment Open Days is that most of the visitors to the stand are already composters. On Sunday there was a lot of interest shown in making liquid feeds from comfrey, nettles, weeds and other pants. Which was lucky as I had prepared a new handout on this topic based on my talk at Gardeners World Live and website   http://www.carryoncomposting.com/142941460.    or    Plant Liquid Feeds

Agriculture is a significant contributor to climate change with producing  at least 14% of global greenhouse. Large quantities of methane are emitted as a result of activities such as : ploughing, which  releases carbon dioxide from the soil,  and  livestock. Farming is a significant user of fossil fuels and, of course, fertilizers. However, while much  attention has been focused on the problems caused by farting cows  farming can help reduce climate change by  carbon sequestration

Making compost on the farm and at home can contribute to the efforts to reduce the rate of global warming as spreading compost to produce humus and using a non-dig method can boost the soils carbon storage ability. Home composting in one garden will have no effect but the possible contribution of all gardens and urban spaces could be significant. If we want to play our part when home composting which methods are best to keep  methane emissions  to a minimum. Which is best hot or cold method composting, Is aerobic composting really aerobic and  does aerating the pile help or make matters worse? Some informationand preliminary thoughts are given on a new page at http://www.carryoncomposting.com/441149741 

One of the problems with composting soft fruit such as mango, nectarine and avocado is that the stones do not breakdown the first time that they are composted. Soaking the stones in boiling water will speed decomposition but they may still appear in the finished compost. In home composting, where relatively few stones are being composted at a time, hitting the soaked stones with a hammer is a very effective means of ensuring that the the maximum surface area will be exposed to the composting microbes and that there are no lumps in the finished compost. The photos show the stones before and after the use of a hammer as a precomposting treatment.
More information on composting fruit at http://www.carryoncomposting.com/142941490

An Open day is being held at Stokes Wood Allotment, 2b Stokes Drive, Leicester  on Saturday 3^rd August between 11am and 2.30 pm.

In addition to providing visitors with the opportunity to tour  a working allotment and discuss the advantages of allotment gardening together with the usual  stalls including produce , cakes, bric a brac, and tombola  the unique Stokes Wood Composting Demonstration site will be open.

The composting demonstration site will have a wide range of different compost bins for home composting and the composting of cooked food  as well as larger bins used for  community composting on the allotment  along with wormeries and information on making liquid plant feeds. There will even be a dog poo wormery!  The bins include Hotbin, green Johanna, Jorra which compost cooked food. Mantis  and other tumbler bins. 

 Children will have the chance to hunt for compost creatures and have their photo taken wearing  a compost bin.  

Further information on the open day from stokes woodallotmentscomms@gmail.com

More information on the Composting site from carryoncomposting1@gail.com